#ld29

The email floats into your inbox at 8:12 am.

You’re only halfway through your first coffee, still trying to sort your day into manageable pieces when your phone buzzes against your kitchen counter. You glance at it, expecting something routine—an edit note, a scheduling change, maybe a reminder from earlier in the week you’d forgotten. 

Instead, you read over the email with a frown.

Subject: New Assignment — Edmonton Oilers Documentary Coverage

You frown. 

That’s…not yours. 

You haven’t covered sports since college. 

You swipe it open anyway. By the time you reach the third line of the email—embedded access, full season coverage, player interviews required—you’re already shaking your head.

“Nope,” you mutter to absolutely no one in the silence of your apartment, taking another sip of coffee like it might somehow undo what you’re reading. “Absolutely not.”

Hockey.

Not just hockey—professional hockey. NHL level. Cameras in locker rooms, pre-game rituals, media scrims, athletes who’ve been trained and prepped and instructed since draft day to say absolutely nothing of substance while sounding like they said everything. 

You scroll back to the top of the email; your name is still at the top. Still assigned to you. Still absolutely very real.

Sighing, you drag a hand down your face. It’s not that you can’t do it. You absolutely can. You’ve done worse assignments, honestly. Corporate pieces with zero creative freedom. Interviews with Fortune 500 CEOs who answer questions like they’re reading from a teleprompter in their heads. But this? This is ego. This is image management. This is at least a dozen people trying to control the narrative before you even hit record. And now you’re supposed to walk into that and…what? Capture something real?

“Great,” you say flatly, puffing out a breath, setting your mug down with a little more force than necessary. “Love that for me.”

The arena is a lot louder than you expect. Not game-day loud—no roaring fans, or rushing crowds, or music shaking the rafters—but it’s alive in a different way. Sharp skates carving through the fresh ice, echoing in the arena. Pucks ricocheting off the boards. Voices carrying from the bench, sharp and fast and easy with each other in a way that feels practiced. 

You adjust your grip on your camera and notebook, taking it all in. It’s not really anything like you thought it’d be, or like how it was described to you. It’s more.

You’ve been on sets a lot bigger than this. A lot more chaotic than this. But there’s something about stepping into this space, a space where everyone already belongs, that makes you hyper-aware of your presence. 

A few heads turn when you walk in.

Not all of them.

Not even most.

But enough that it becomes a bit of a distraction.

Schooling your features, you keep your expression neutral, professional, like you always do. You’ve learned that much—especially as a woman, if you act like you’re supposed to be here, people tend to accept it faster. 

“Hey—you must be part of the doc crew.”

You glance over as a staff member approaches, hand extended. 

Shifting your camera so the strap sits around your wrist, you shake his hand. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“Welcome,” he says easily. “We’ll get you set up in the media room, then in the locker room after practice has wrapped. Practice runs another half hour, then we’ve got availability for some interviews after.”

“Perfect,” you reply, already mentally mapping out the footage you’ll need. B-roll first. Establishing shots. Faces, movement, rhythm. Something you can build from later.

You step closer to the boards, lifting your camera to the glass. Through the lens, everything sharpens. The blurs of motion become something intentional. Controlled. You follow the plays on the ice for a moment, adjusting your focus, tracking the puck—then your attention is snagged by something else. Or rather, someone else.

Not the puck.

Not the play.

Him.

He’s easy to pick out of the cluster of players on the ice, even if you don’t know names yet. There’s a kind of presence to him—something in the way the others move around him, and in the way he carries himself like the space belongs to him without having to prove it.

Fast. Precise. Effortless in a way that’s probably anything but. Cocky, but not too much, enough to seem justifiable by his talents.

He takes a shot—clean and controlled—and the sound of it hitting the back of the net echoes even through the glass, even over the other chatter and hockey sounds. 

You adjust slightly, following him as he circles back. And then—he looks up. Right at you. It’s quick. A second, maybe less. But it’s enough. Enough for you to realize that he’s not just scanning the rink—he’s taking notice of you. You don’t drop your camera; you’ve been doing this too long to let behaviour like that deter you. Instead, you hold steady, like the moment doesn’t mean anything. 

Like he’s just another subject in the frame.

His gaze lingers a fraction longer than necessary. Then he looks away.

You exhale, the breath you’d been holding since he’d started staring, finally vacating your lungs.

“Okay,” you murmur under your breath. “So…that’s how this is going to be.”

The locker room post-practice is exactly what you’d expect. Controlled chaos. Gear everywhere, voices overlapping, the low hum of conversation mixed with the clatter of movement. Not to mention the overwhelming ‘hockey stench’ which could only be described as something akin to very dead roadkill. You keep the camera low for now, letting the players get more settled, and letting yourself become a part of the background—observing more, before you start inserting yourself into it.

A few of them glance your way.

One of them—grinning, half-dressed and lounging in his stall—nudges the guy in the stall next to him and says something you don’t quite catch. Judging by the smirk on their faces, you’re willing to bet it’s not complimentary. 

You ignore it. 

You’ve learned to ignore a lot.

The first couple of interviews are easy enough. Standard answers. Media-trained responses. You ask questions, they respond, you nod and thank them, then you move on. It’s fine. It’s all useable. But it’s also exactly what you didn’t want.

“Next,” the staff member says, glancing around at the players left. “Hey! Leon!”

You don’t recognize the name yet. But you recognize him as soon as he looks up, his blue eyes locking onto yours. Of course it’s him. Of course.

He takes his time standing, like the obligatory request is optional. Like this is something he’s doing as a courtesy. 

You square your shoulders, already mentally resetting. Professional. Neutral. Unbothered. 

He steps into position in the camera frame. Up close, he’s…worse. Not worse—more. Sharper. More solid. More aware. His gaze flicks to you, assessing you in a way that feels entirely too direct.

“This necessary?” He asks, not even bothering to hide the edge in his voice. His expression is stern, almost grumpy.

You don’t miss a beat.

“Yes. It is.”

A beat. Silence sits between you.

Something flickers in his expression. Surprise? Maybe annoyance? It’s hard to tell; you just don’t know him well enough yet.

“Great,” he mutters.

You lean over in your chair slightly, adjusting the camera angle to make sure he’s in frame. 

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Leon exhales through his nose, then nods once. “Yeah. Sure.”

You start. “First day back at practice—how’s the team feeling heading into the new season.”

He shrugs. “Fine.”

You wait for more words to come out. None do.

You blink. “…fine?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s it?” You tilt your head slightly.

“What else do you want me to say?”

Something tugs in your chest—not nerves. Irritation, maybe. The kind that comes from someone deciding right off the bat that you’re not worth engaging with. A feeling you’ve unfortunately become all too familiar with. You keep your tone even.

“I want you to actually answer the question.”

“I did.”

You hold his gaze for a second longer than necessary; he does the same unflinchingly.

“O-kay…” you say slowly. “Let’s try another question.”

A couple of his teammates still hanging around the locker room go quiet. You can feel the change—the subtle shift in attention. Good.

“First day back,” you repeat, voice steady as before. “Tell me, what’s the energy like in the room?”

He stares at you, watching like he’s trying to figure something out. 

“It’s good,” he says, tone more clipped than before. “Guys are ready. We know what we’re capable of.”

It’s better.

Still a surface-level answer, but better.

You nod once. “And personally?”

His jaw tightens. 

There it is.

“Same answer.”

You almost sigh, but by some modicum of professionalism, you manage to hold it back. Instead, you adjust the camera, moving so he’s just slightly out of frame—not off, not fully—but enough that it’s definitely clear you’re not continuing like this.

“Look,” you say, voice quiet but firm, “I’m not here to waste your time.”

His frown shifts slightly as he raises an eyebrow, staring at you. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“And I’m definitely not here to stand around while you give me one-word useless answers like this is an optional activity.”

Whatever emotions are sitting on his face sharpen at your words.

“You’re getting your footage or whatever, aren’t you?”

“Not really,” you reply. “Not if it’s unusable.”

He huffs out a breath, looking away, surveying the room, before looking back at you.

“And what exactly are you looking for?”

“Something real,” you say, the words coming without hesitation.

The words hang there in the thick, humid air of the locker room. And for a second, it feels like everything else in the room fades just a little. His eyes narrow as his gaze sharpens.

“Yeah,” he says after a beat, tone unreadable. “Good luck with that.”

You don’t look away. Even though the sharpness of his gaze has your skin crawling.

“Thanks,” you reply, tone carefully even. “I’ll start here.”

You both sit in silence, unbothered by the tension. He waits. You wait. Like you’re playing chicken, waiting to see who’s going to swerve first. 

“Energy’s good,” he says again, slower this time. “We’ve got a lot to prove this season.”

You don’t react outwardly, trying not to give him any possible ammunition or reasons to change his tune. But you clock the change. It’s closer. You adjust the camera so it’s fully focused on him once again. 

“Keep going.”

He does. It’s not much, but it’s more than he was giving you before. And for now? You’ll take it.

When it’s over, he doesn’t wait to be dismissed or wait for a thank you. Doesn’t ask how it went. He just stands up from the chair, slowly, and steps back, already turning away like the interaction is done the second he decides it is. 

You turn off the camera, lowering it, and watch him go. There’s a tension in your chest that you don’t feel quite ready to name yet. Not just solely frustration, not entirely anyway, something sharper and much more interesting.

“Yeah,” you murmur under your breath, jotting down a few notes in your book, hoping no one else is listening. “This is going to be fun.”

Across the room, like he can hear you—or maybe he can just feel the vibes in the air—he glances back. Just for a second. 

This time though, there’s no mistaking it. 

You definitely have Leon’s attention now. 

Whether he likes it or not.

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